Blackhammer

Cairn(s)

Blackhammer (Cairn(s)) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 23 images, 3 fieldnotes, 1 weblink, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

This one was my first real l-o-n-g stalled cairn. I had already seen Unstan and Taversoe Tuick which are both essentially round cairns with stalls, but Blackhammer was different. Like the others, it has been topped with concrete to protect it but the construction and its length is what wowed me. (I hadn't yet seen Midhowe.) I paced it out at 12 1/2 ms!

Blackhammer Chambered Cairn, Rousay
Wednesday 14/8/96
Of all the sites we visited on the tour de Rousay today, I have to say that this one was the most disappointing. Of the original cairn there's not much left and what is left is only about 4 foot high or so, then it's concrete time! If you ignore the cairn remains you could be in some dreadful public lavatory. Not nice or sympathetic restoration.